Ex-Charger Chuck Muncie dies at 60

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 1980, file photo, San Diego Charges quarterback Dan Fouts (14) and running back Chuck Muncie (46) flash big smiles as they leave field following the Chargers 20-14 over the Buffalo Bills in an NFL football playoff game in San Diego. The New Orleans Saints announced Tuesday, May 14, 2013, that Muncie, a Pro Bowl running back with both the Saints and Chargers, has died. He was 60. (AP Photo/File)
— AP

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 1980, file photo, San Diego Charges quarterback Dan Fouts (14) and running back Chuck Muncie (46) flash big smiles as they leave field following the Chargers 20-14 over the Buffalo Bills in an NFL football playoff game in San Diego. The New Orleans Saints announced Tuesday, May 14, 2013, that Muncie, a Pro Bowl running back with both the Saints and Chargers, has died. He was 60. (AP Photo/File)
/ AP

Chuck Muncie, a three-time Pro Bowl running back who set an NFL touchdown record with the Chargers, has died of heart attack at age 60, the Saints announced on Tuesday.

Drafted by the Saints in 1976 -- the Chargers traded for him in 1980 -- Muncie supplied 19 rushing touchdowns to the "Air Coryell" offense in 1981 to set an NFL season record later broken.

But off the field, Muncie also ran fast. He was a cocaine addict, yet later turned his life around and helped adults and youngsters better their lives.

Convicted of selling cocaine in 1989, he spent 18 months in prison following a six-month detention and there bottomed out.

"I woke up every morning in that cell for 2 1/2 years, looking at myself in the mirror," he told the Union-Tribune's Nick Canepa in 2004. "I had seen enough.

"It almost was like an epiphany. I was behind bars, pointing fingers at everybody but myself. I finally realized that I'm in charge, that it's me with the addiction. It's easy to fall off and blame other people. It's your choice."

Muncie found success by serving others. His Chuck Muncie Youth Foundation, a nonprofit established in 1997 and based in Oxnard, helped youngsters "avoid the bad decisions that nearly destroyed its namesake, providing Southern California youth with alternatives to the street and offering a highly regarded tattoo-removal program," the Los Angeles Times' Jerry Crowe wrote in 2008.

Muncie also led a mentoring program for athletes at his alma mater, Cal.

Talking to Canepa in 2004, Muncie said cocaine use was widespread among NFL players during his career, and, in time, engulfed him.

"When I got to the NFL, that's when I was introduced to it, in New Orleans," he says. "So many of the guys were on it."

While Muncie was with the Chargers, the NFL sent him to a rehab center in Arizona. Muncie returned to a Chargers team that, he told Canepa, had several cocaine users. He fell back into using the highly addictive drug, although he said he used only after games.

Suspended twice for drugs by the NFL, Muncie said the league's treatment program was a joke.

"That's what (ticked) me off for so long," he said. "I kept saying, 'What's wrong with this picture?' I needed help, and I got help from another program when I got out (of jail), but it wasn't from the NFL. Back then, the NFL program was a joke. They send you away for 30 days and when you're done they send you back to the same environment that got you there in the first place.

"Before you leave (rehab), they tell you to stay away from the people, places and things that got you in trouble, so they send you right back to the people, places and things that got you in trouble."

Despite being, in his words, "a functioning addict" during his four seasons with the Chargers, Muncie was a terrific player -- fast, powerful and shifty.

He could have been better had his life been in order.

"I see some guys in the Hall of Fame or in the Chargers Hall of Fame and it's frustrating," he said in 2004.

"I'm not there because of the choices I made. I think about what could have been – what would have been."

But Harry Vance "Chuck" Muncie didn't allow cocaine to define him.

"Was I going to continue to disgrace myself and my family or turn a negative into a positive?" he said. "Everything I do today, everything I've done the last 14 years, allows me to wake up with a smile on my face."

Muncie's daughter, Danielle Ward, described her father as a "great man" in a statement issued by the Muncie family on Tuesday.

"While most knew him as an NFL great, he was also a loving father and a man who doted on his three grandchildren," Ward said. "Our entire family will miss him greatly.

"His work with at-risk youth, the Boys and Girls clubs and his foundation were the things that really made him shine," she added.

Robyn Hood, Muncie's former wife, said "Chuck was a man of many gifts and talents" whose "most impressive work was done in the second chapter of his life where he lived his life with great transparency. His life became that of an open book. He simply wanted others to learn from his mistakes. He carried that message with him everywhere he went. And as a result, he changed the lives of hundreds of kids. He made a difference."

Supporting youth-related programs such as the Boys and Girls club, the Muncie family said, would be the best way to honor Chuck Muncie and celebrate his accomplishments, both on and off the field.

Muncie is the third former Chargers great to die in the last 13 months. Junior Seau, a linebacker and 12-time Pro Bowler, died last May. Walt Sweeney, a nine-time Pro Bowler at guard who played on San Diego's AFL-winning team, died in February.